General Articles - Tools

Replace Your Crescent Wrench?

Article written by Moab Man

Date Added: 06/02/2008

Every Jeepers tool bag has at least one Crescent Wrench, and it may be time to replace it.

We concede that you should always use the right tool for the job at hand. Yet that doesn?t stop any of us from pulling out the trusty Crescent Wrench. The funny thing is that no matter how often you use a Crescent wrench you always seem to turn the adjusting corkscrew the wrong way.

No longer though, the slide adjuster makes adjustments fast and easy; forward to close the jaws and backwards to open them. Could it get any easier?

Of course easy doesn?t always make it better so we wondered how well the tool would work. Under pressure will the jaws try to open? Does the hollow handle, with internal slide mechanism, still have structural strength to not deform under heavy load?

As to our first question, the jaws trying to open? no problem here. The same tried-and-true corkscrew of our old Crescent Wrench opens and closes the jaw, but with a slight twist. Sliding the adjuster turns a gear and corkscrew located internal to the head of the wrench.

Handle strength seemed every bit as strong as our traditional Crescent, but with a pleasant surprise. The thicker handle, containing the slide mechanism, allowed us to put even greater pressure on the handle since it fit our hand better.

So did we find any drawbacks?

We did not experience any difficulty with our slide adjustable wrench but could see where if you didn?t keep the internal slide clean it could bind. Fortunately the slide is open so that debris could be blown out and the slide lubricated. We suggest a silicone spray since it leaves no oily residue to collect more dirt as WD40 does.

To Purchase...?

You may have noticed we never told you the brand of tool or where you could purchase it. This is because we found ours for sale at Checkers (automotive parts store) on the clearance discontinued rack. Fortunately for those of you wanting this tool we also found it at Lowes sold under their in-house tool brand Kobalt.

Final Thoughts

The tool works flawlessly and we appreciated how much quicker a job could be completed by getting the tool adjustment right, the first time, and every time.